I have heard many people — the latest being Adam Lichtenheld ("Sex, lies, and criminalizing abortion," March 29, 2006) — question why those who are against abortion don't promote contraception. While, as a legal matter, I and many other pro-lifers would not be in favor of banning all contraceptives or removing all mention of them from health class, I can perhaps understand those who are. Contraception and abortion are part of the same culture, a culture where personal autonomy and sexual gratification are the highest goods, while the human life that may result from sex is regarded as a mistake and a burden rather than as an astonishing gift.

Indeed, a child is a mistake and a burden in an uncommitted relationship, and that is exactly the problem. What pro-lifers want is a society where a human life carries more weight than a good time, and the casual sex that contraception makes possible is an enemy to that attitude.

Now perhaps that society is unrealistic (or a "living hell," depending on your point of view). But as long as our culture tells us that we can't help it, people are just going to have sex anyway, people will. And there will be mistakes and abandonment and abortion. But maybe if we start telling ourselves that we can help it, telling ourselves that we need to view others as persons and not as potential sex partners and to value the smallest of human lives, people might do that, too.

Matthew Bayer

UW student